In the context of the present invention, the term “bevel” gears is understood to be of sufficient scope to include those types of gears known as bevel gears, “hypoid” gears, as well as those gears known as “crown” or “face” gears. A bevel gear pair is generally considered to comprise a ring gear (usually the driven member) and a smaller pinion (usually the driving member). Generally, the pinion has fewer teeth than the ring gear and usually includes a shaft of some length extending from the back surface of the head portion of the pinion.
In loading, or unloading, a bevel pinion into, or from, a gear manufacturing machine (either a cutting machine or finishing machine, such as a grinding machine), one practice has been to grip the pinion about its head portion and then manipulating it into a chucking mechanism located in the work head of a machine tool. A gripping mechanism of the type shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,635,323 to Helfer et al. comprises jaw members, for gripping the back surface of a pinion, together with a centering cup and centering pin. This mechanism, however, is expensive to manufacture and requires changing the centering cup and adjusting, or replacing, the jaw members when a different size pinion is to be gripped.